If you’re a CSP serving customers in the EMEA region, you know that driving growth is top of mind. Like your counterparts around the world, you face rising costs, even as you build out for the future. So you’re constantly on the lookout for new opportunities to boost your margins and monetize your network investments in 5G and other technologies. Those opportunities may lie at the software-defined edge.
Big things are happening at the edge in Europe
Edge-driven solutions and Internet of Things (IoT) could offer the opportunities you’re looking for, especially in EMEA. For example, according to Fortune Business Insights, European organizations are expected to spend $345 billion by 2027 in IoT-related technology. In this blog, we’ll take a look at some edge opportunities in the EMEA region—and the platforms and capabilities needed to support them.
Toward smarter, strategic manufacturing
Manufacturing, with its thousands of diverse endpoints and rich automation potential, is a natural for edge use cases. Market reports show that the smart manufacturing market size in Europe alone is estimated at USD 54.67 billion in 2024, and expected to reach USD 68.42 billion by 2029— a CAGR of 4.59%.
Manufacturers are exploring solutions like AI-enabled computer vision, to inspect quality in real time and spot issues that might be invisible to humans. They’re using smart sensor data, tracking performance and conditions of robots on the factory floor to drive more predictive maintenance—and improve uptime by up to 50 percent. Manufacturing innovators are also utilizing extended reality applications to empower their onsite workers to perform more advanced installation and assembly tasks.
In Germany, luxury automotive maker Audi is leaning into edge applications with its fully networked, digitized production facilities. Employees are its key focus, including intelligent assistance systems that facilitate human-machine interaction.
Opening up new possibilities with smart cities
Smart cities are another exciting arena for edge applications. They bring together the best of advanced technology and traditional urban planning, through technologies like smart meters for energy efficiency; intelligent cameras and lighting for enhanced public safety; and connected transportation and roadway systems.
According to Statista, the smart city market has been growing in Europe for the last decade, with projected revenues of around USD 46 billion expected in 2028. And in the Middle East, cities are expected to invest USD 50 billion in smart cities by 2025.
Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, is aggressively building out its smart digital and physical infrastructure. The first blockchain-powered city, more than 7.5 million transactions were made over its payment infrastructure, and the application resided on more than 500,000 citizen smartphones in 2020. The system is saving the city money on document processing, while fueling innovation and international leadership.
Extended reach and better outcomes in healthcare
Healthcare use cases are promising for EMEA CSPs as well. According to Fortune Business Insights, IoT healthcare applications are forecast to hold a substantial market share in Europe.
Advanced technology at the edge can help providers not only extend the reach of state-of-the-art care, but also power efficiency and better patient outcomes. For example, remote monitoring for patients in at-home care environments can improve patient safety, while offering caregivers more flexibility.
AI/ML technologies are supporting assisted diagnosis for patients that may not be able to see a specialist face-to-face. They’re also helping clinicians in the field have access to improved expertise. In hospitals as well as remote locations, remote and assisted surgery with AI assist and real-time computer vision helps experts treat patients regardless of their location.
Edge use cases have distinct needs
It’s clear that edge use cases can deliver impactful outcomes to enterprise customers, as well as new revenue potential for CSPs. But like any transformative technology, they also bring some very specific challenges. A centralized data center can’t support most edge applications, which demand more advanced intelligence and resources close to endpoints.
Administration is tricky as well, because each edge location needs the ability to self-manage, accessing the storage, compute, and other resources it needs in real time, as it needs them. From a CSP perspective, customer edge locations are highly diverse, with different sizes, IT support and connectivity needs, making it challenging to deliver centrally-managed edge services at scale. A robot on a factory floor will have completely different requirements compared to healthcare devices, computer vision retail devices, or autonomous vehicles.
A springboard for edge opportunities
Armed with the right platform, CSPs can offer software-programmable edge solutions for distributed applications. Most CSPs have a large footprint, and deep expertise managing distributed networks, putting them in a strong place to meet their customer challenges. With a comprehensive, software-defined edge solution, they can support their enterprise customers’ advanced distributed applications—and acquire the unified control and manageability they need to address their own challenges at the edge.
A software-defined edge platform with its intelligent overlay lets CSPs bridge distributed edge compute environments with edge networking and the programmable telco network. Flexible and scalable, it gives you the ability to assess enterprise needs, then assemble a complete solution to enable it. It helps you deliver better value to your enterprise customers, provide the capacity, quality, and availability that’s needed to meet SLAs, and gain visibility and insight to be more involved in customer operations—and anticipate even more opportunities.
With so much happening at the edge in EMEA markets, now is a great time to differentiate your services, engage with customers, and establish steady revenue streams to grow into the future.
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–> Read our APJ Edge Trends blog, next!
